The semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) industry has experienced exponential growth. Technological advances in IC materials and design have produced generations of ICs where each generation has smaller and more complex circuits than the previous generation. In the course of IC evolution, functional density (i.e., the number of interconnected devices per chip area) has generally increased while geometry size (i.e., the smallest component (or line) that can be created using a fabrication process) has decreased. This scaling down process generally provides benefits by increasing production efficiency and lowering associated costs. Such scaling down has also increased the complexity of IC processing and manufacturing. For these advances to be realized, similar developments in IC processing and manufacturing are needed. For example, the need to perform higher resolution lithography processes grows. One lithography technique is extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL). Other techniques include X-Ray lithography, ion beam projection lithography, electron beam projection lithography, and multiple electron beam maskless lithography.
The EUVL employs scanners using light in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) region, having a wavelength of about 1-100 nm. Some EUV scanners provide 4× reduction projection printing, similar to some optical scanners, except that the EUV scanners use reflective rather than refractive optics, i.e., mirrors instead of lenses. EUV scanners provide desired patterns on wafers by transferring mask patterns defined by an absorber layer. Currently, binary intensity masks (BIM) accompanied by on-axis illumination (ONI) are employed in EUVL. In order to achieve adequate aerial image contrast for future nodes, e.g., nodes with the minimum pitch of 32 nm and 22 nm, etc., several techniques, e.g., the attenuated phase-shifting mask (AttPSM) and the alternating phase-shifting mask (AltPSM), have been developed to obtain resolution enhancement for EUVL. But each technique has its limitation needed to be overcome. For example, an absorption layer however may not fully absorb the incident light and a portion of the incident light is reflected from the absorption layer. Also the thickness of the absorption layer causes the shadowing effect. All of these often result in reduced aerial image contrast, which may lead to poor pattern profiles and poor resolution, particularly as pattern features continue to decrease in size. It is desired to have improvements in this area.